


Final Approach

by Charlotte_Lancer



Series: Flight Plan Series [10]
Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, Not Beta Read, Press and Tabloids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25154884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlotte_Lancer/pseuds/Charlotte_Lancer
Summary: A tabloid photo makes things far more public than they have any right to be.
Relationships: Jeremy Clarkson/Mindy Hammond/Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson/Richard Hammond, Mindy Hammond/Richard Hammond
Series: Flight Plan Series [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1436929
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Final Approach

The article is published while Richard and Jeremy are on a flight back from the most recent shoot, so it's Mindy who sees it first. She opens up her laptop to check the arrival time for the flight, and checks her email as the airport website loads. 

One of her friends has sent her an email, marked urgent. She opens it, and sees lines of exclamation points and question marks surrounding a single blue hyperlink, showing the Daily Mail's web address. The Daily Mail is never a good sign, and she clicks the link warily.

“TOP GEAR SCANDAL! PHOTOS AND MORE!” 

The headline is plastered across the top of the page in huge font, in colours so bright they hurt to look at. The text below it is published in a more normal manner, but she still dreads reading it.

_ “Today our photographers have caught something rather interesting, dear readers. _

_ Following his recent divorce, Jeremy Clarkson has been seen spending lots of time with friend and fellow presenter Richard Hammond, and Hammond’s wife Mindy. Today, though, we’ve got damning evidence that things are not as strictly-friendly as they seemed. _

_ These photos, taken skillfully by our esteemed team of research photographers-”  _ Mindy snorts at their description of their paparazzi, and scrolls down until she reaches the first photo.

If the first photo had been alone, it would have been easy to deny all of the speculation. It shows her, Richard, and Jeremy outside of a restaurant, having just finished dinner, with Jeremy leaning down to kiss her cheek, and one of his hands resting on Richard’s shoulder. Perhaps not something they’re known for doing, but nowhere out of the normal bounds of a close friendship.

The second photo is similar, showing the same thing from another angle, and Mindy relaxes fractionally as she scrolls through several more angles of the cheek kiss and the moments immediately afterward.

The last two photos are another story, however, and there’s no way they’ll be able to play it off as anything other than exactly what it is. Taken on a lower quality camera than the others, and by someone who was clearly trespassing at the time, one photo shows the three of them on her and Richard’s back porch. Richard is sitting on the railing in order to be closer to a level height with Jeremy, and the two of them are kissing in a way that could never be mistaken for platonic. Mindy herself is watching with a smile on her face, sitting on a lounge chair with a lemonade in hand. The other is of Jeremy lifting her up onto the railing as well. It doesn’t show them kissing- they hadn’t- but the casually intimate placement of Jeremy’s hands on her imply to the public far too many things that haven’t happened.

There is no photo of her subsequent kiss with Richard. Either the photographer had left before it had happened, or the editor had decided that there wasn’t enough scandal in showing a married couple kissing, but she almost wishes there was one. At least it would help balance things out a bit, maybe convince the public that there was nothing wrong with their marriage, that their actions with Jeremy weren’t some sort of trouble-motivated fling.

A quick check of the byline shows that the article has been up for a few hours now- too long for removing it to have any effect, even if she were able to have it taken down. They would need to release a statement, and the sooner the better. The airport website is showing that the flight won’t be in for at least another half hour, so she forwards the email to Richard’s lawyer, and sends a short message to her parents warning them of what’s been published. They already know of her relationship, thankfully, but she doesn’t want them to be blindsided by the coming media frenzy.

She briefly considers sending something to Richard and Jeremy, but quickly decides against it. It’s unlikely that either of them have bothered to buy the in-flight wifi on a two hour flight, and even if they have there isn’t anything they can do about it from 30,000 feet in the air. They’ll have plenty of time to stress about it soon enough, there’s no need to bring it on now.

For now, she watches out the window where two of her horses are grazing, and waits.


End file.
